Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bombings-at-baghdad-markets-deadliest-attacks-in-months Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Two bombings killed at least 73 people and wounded scores more in separate blasts in Baghdad pet bazaars Friday, ending a relative lull in violence in the Iraqi capital. Stephen Farrell, a New York Times correspondent in Baghdad, provides an update on the story. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Two terrible bombings in Iraq. We get the story from Stephen Farrell of The New York Times in Baghdad. Margaret Warner talked with him earlier this evening. MARGARET WARNER: Stephen Farrell, thank you for being with us. What can you tell us about these two deadly suicide bombings today at the Baghdad pet markets? How did they unfold? STEPHEN FARRELL, New York Times: Well, what Iraqi witnesses told us today was that two women went to two separate pet markets, both pretty much in the center of Baghdad. One blew herself up at the Ghazil market, beside the River Tigris.And then, as word of that was filtering through to another pet market nearby, and as they were all beginning to say "What should we do about this?" and beginning to think about leaving, before they could do anything, another woman turned up there and blew herself up.So we have a death toll of more than 60, according to initial reports, and that makes it the bloodiest day in Baghdad for almost exactly six months. MARGARET WARNER: So, Stephen, the Iraqi authorities were saying that these two women were mentally disabled or retarded and that their explosive vests were detonated remotely. What are they basing that on? And were you able to confirm that? STEPHEN FARRELL: We have heard these reports. They haven't presented any direct evidence of that, it has to be said.What one senior Iraqi policeman we spoke to said was that, judging from the head of one of the women at the Ghazil market, she appeared to be suffering from Down syndrome.Certainly, two members of our staff went there and said it was impossible to say, just judging from the head of a woman who's obviously suffered severe trauma, in that her head has been blown off her body, was or wasn't mentally impaired.We actually did speak to an Iraqi witness at the larger market who said that, minutes before the blast, he saw that woman, apparently in normal fashion, walking down the road, holding a child by the hand, looking back over her shoulder, and then he lost sight of her, but she was behaving normally, and that he later recognized the head on the ground as that woman he saw.